Posted on 09/22/2012 8:27:10 PM PDT by Innovative
Back in 1980 Gallup had Jimmy Carter up over Ronald Reagan by 4 points in mid to late September... And, Carter was up 8 points in October. In fact there was a published Gallup poll showing Carter up six among likely voters in a poll conducted Oct. 24 to 27.

Ronald Reagan ended up winning by 9 points and taking 44 states.
(Excerpt) Read more at thegatewaypundit.com ...
Don't let them. Be sure to vote, not just in battleground states -- Romney needs to win both the electoral and popular votes.
People, Romney ain’t no Reagan. Reagan won California and New York. Different time.
The demographic changes have been brutal for the GOP. There’s just no getting away from it.
Yeah, he won CA and NY, and the polls had him 4 down in Late sept...Seems they were off by a bunch more then, were they not?
Exactly. This is a useless comparison. Demographics is destiny. Things have changed to an extent we now have a different nation.
Thanks Innovative.
Yup.....some people are just not grasping what 40 years of open borders have done to the GOP election base. We have lost CA. CO & NV are purple, at best. VA is falling away & NC is a struggle.
Yeah, Romney isn’t Reagan but Obama is WORSE than Carter. Most of the Reagan voters were NOT for Reagan, but against Carter. Reagan success was a pleasant surprise for most voters which explains ‘84. Daddy Bush screwed that up.
The posters making points about demographics have part of the story but the other factor here is the negative shift in the veracity levels of the polling organizations. Think about just the concept of “push polls” — those did not exist, to any great extent, in 1980.
Four years and a week ago, McCain was up by three, for a more recent example.
An excellent book on the 1980 election is Rendevous With Destiny by Craig Shirley. Carter did have a slight lead in some polls up until about 10 days before the election when Carter and Reagan debated at Reagan won the debate clearly with the american people even if much of the media was pretty convinced that Carter had won.
I woke up after the 2006 midterms and have not been surprised yet since.
Nope, the real difference between now and Reagan era is that dependents on food stamps, unemployment, disability etc. are 5 or 6 times larger.
And TX is now fast becoming or has already become a majority “non-white.” When TX becomes a swing state just like VA, FL, NC, and MO before it, then all is lost. No, this is not the same nation of the Reagan era and any comparisons to the Reagan-Carter polling data are just fanciful and irrelevant.
All these new immigrants are not buying what the GOP is selling....most of them are poor, can’t read or write & on & on. A lot just go right on welfare. Texas will be gone by the 2020 cycle, if not before, along with Arizonia.
Can’t believe the negativity on this thread — go ahead, so-called conservatives, just stay home, don’t even try to defeat Obama and be proud that you will have contributed to Obama’s reelection and the destruction of the US as we know it!
I’m voting for R/R & think they are going to win a tight race.....that said: there are some real demographic shifts going on that can’t be ignored. We are having trouble defeating Obama because of these demographic shifts & it will only get worse in the coming years.
The media back then was nothing compared to what we have today. I still believe Romney will win despite them, but comparisons like this are apples and oranges..
Just wonder if at any time in the past 30-40 years has the “media” or polls had the Republican candidate up?
The reason I ask is I am not sure that we can beleive the polls. Obama is the worst President America has had in the past 100 years. He is destroying our economy, he is hastening the decline of our societies morals, he has no plan for the future, no plan for today and zero leadership ability. Yet he is tied or ahead of the Republican candidate.
Any candidate should be up 30-40 points over Obama!
Is this some scenario that if Romney wins the media can constant challenge him because he cheated or voting irregularities etc? Cuase surely he should not have won because Obama was ahead so much in the polls...
Where are all those people who oppose Obamacare?
Not according to Gallup.
McCain was never ahead of Obama in the national tracking polls.
They are not conservatives. Check e signup dates. The commies are here.
The media purpose is to 1) discourage Romney voters with poor poll numbers, and 2) encourage Obama voters with good poll numbers. Conservative jounalists need to STOP wasting valuable ink talking about poll numbers and START talking about the issues. And conservatives in general need to ignore the polls.
BTW-If Carter was 4 points over Reagan at this time, one has to wonder where Romney is with being tied in the polls.
Of course I agree you can’t compare Romney with Reagen and there have been demographic shifts as others have pointed out. However, I think the main thing to take away from looking back at the Carter vs Reagan polls is that the polls can never be trusted. I believe most polls are understating support for Romney by 3-5%.
Rendezvous
I think that a lot of potential Romney voters haven't heard Romney except for selected, brief sound bites, and if the Obama campaign and MSM is to be believed, Romney has hooves and a pointed tail. At the debates, many will see that he doesn't for the first time. How has Zero performed in debates in the past? Without a teleprompter? My impression is that he's said some pretty dumb stuff when he's unscripted.
The Obama campaign should be in full-fledged panic mode right now. If they don't seem to be, it's because Democrats can lie much more effectively than Republicans can lie, and because they have a lot of help from the MSM.
If 2010 was any kind of indication, Romney will win, not in a landslide, but by as much as Zero did during the advent of the latest Dark Ages.
True that the MSM is trying to discourage the center and right for voting for Romney. If you look at the most recent polls, it is not working.
Given all the comparisons to previous election polls like here in 1980. I wonder how accurate these polls were? Did they poll adults or registered voters and did they over sample dems? If someone like Rasmussen was polling back then, what would the polls be like?
True that the MSM is trying to discourage the center and right for voting for Romney. If you look at the most recent polls, it is not working.
Given all the comparisons to previous election polls like here in 1980. I wonder how accurate these polls were? Did they poll adults or registered voters and did they over sample dems? If someone like Rasmussen was polling back then, what would the polls be like?
I was looking at the RCP averages. Gallup was near the bottom in accuracy and has been for a long while.
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